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War of Urkrayya Unification
The War of Urkrayya Unification '''(also known as the '''Conquest of Taurym '''and the '''Lyuudri Insurrection) was a war waged by Tsar Kasimir I of Kyigorod against the neighboring Principality of Taurivy, then confederated with Kyigorod as an autonomous polity. The Tsar claimed that the Lyuudri who inhabited the Taurym Peninsula had violated the terms of their confederation, and that his military intervention in the region was to restore order. This repression sparked outright revolt from the Lyuudri, but this was, of course, the Tsar's plan. Penned into the peninsula, with the Tsar commanding the supply routes in and out, the Lyuudri were unable to continue to support their armies in the field and were ultimately forced to surrender. The war ended with a tactical victory for the Tsar and the full annexation of Taurivy. He renamed the principality Kasivy in his own honor and declared himself its Prince, adding it to his domain. Prelude For centuries prior to this conflict, the Lyuudri denizens of the Taurym Peninsula were considered by the Grand Principality of Urgorod to be a province of theirs, per a pact concluded in approximately 2100 PC. The pact was made in order to quell the worst of the mush'ar raids into the Grand Prince's territory. The Lyuudri would be given free reign to operate on the Peninsula and to travel through Urgorod, provided they did not assault settlements under the Grand Prince's protection. They would also have Urgorod's protection should they ever be attacked by a neighboring polity or tribe. In exchange, the Grand Prince gained ''de jure ''control of the Peninsula and access to its seaports, though the Lyuudri were allowed to retain their own system of governance and religion. All in all, it was more of a non-aggression pact than anything else; however, the formal terms of the agreement gave the Grand Prince the right of governance to the Taurym Peninsula, which he simply delegated ''de facto ''the Lyuudri Dróttinn in order to maintain public order. The Lyuudri, who rarely concluded formal agreements in this manner, acted by what they considered the spirit of the pact rather than the letter of it, and as such saw themselves as, at best, allies and, at worst, friendly neighbors of the Cossari. This quid pro quo remained in place between 2000 and 1600 PC, broken only by occasional spurts of violence, usually instigated by a renegade Dróttinn pillaging territory the Grand Prince considered protected. However, the 1600s PC saw the rise of the Grand Principality of Urgorod to a more centralized and imperialistic Tsardom of Kyigorod under Tsar Kyiy I Mekhavov, and the continued presence of an independent nomadic empire on an otherwise-safe border hindered Kyigorod's expansion. The third tsar of Kyigorod, Kasimir I, had begun manipulating the terms of the agreement by his third year on the imperial throne, taking actions such as implementing Kyigorod-run taxation systems that were technically allowed by the agreement but had not been utilized since its inception due to the potential for war. The Dróttinn refused to enforce the new taxation laws and Kasimir's collectors were often run out of villages by the townsfolk. In response, Kasimir began sending armed soldiers alongside the collectors for protection. Lyuudri emissaries traveled to Kyigorod to demand explanation, but many were arrested on charges unrelated to their mission and detained in the tsar's prisons. With their petitions being ignored and furious about the armed convoys moving through their territory, mush'ar warbands began attacking the collectors and their escorts, usually resulting in the deaths of Kasimir's men. As far as can be told, these mush'ar were not under direct orders from the Dróttinn; however, it is likely she knew of these attacks, and she did nothing to prevent or even discourage them. Kasimir I asserted that these were orchestrated attacks against the tsardom and demanded the heads of all involved. The Dróttinn refused. As the spring thaw came to its end in 1569 PC, Kasimir I declared that the deaths of imperial men on duty on the Taurym Peninsula and the refusal of the Dróttinn to adequately protect them or apprehend their assailants constituted a breach of the Dróttinn's duties to the realm and authorized a forcible intervention to return order to the steppes. This intervention force, however, was an invasion army in all but name, and the Lyuudri reacted accordingly. War had begun. The War Hetman Perynyk Loshadevich was placed in charge of the initial intervention force, composed primarily of Cossari light cavalry, with a regiment of Kyigorod's heavy cavalry led by Generál-Leytenánt Ser Volya Bronirovannyy Medved and a pair of three-headed balaur. The Hetman, acting under specific orders from the Tsar, marched his forces eastward along the coast of the Kholod Sea, sacking villages as they went. One of the most notable chieftains of the northwestern mush'ar, Chiharu Shan, quickly retaliated, leading the local militia as well as her mush'ar warband against the Hetman northwest of the village of Kosha (now known as Malyy Cossarvy). Her forces were ill-equipped to handle Ser Volya's armored knights, however, and they were soundly defeated, and she was killed in battle. Her daughter, Chinami Shan, rallied the survivors and retreated west. By this point, the Dróttinn had mustered the mush'ar of western Taurivy. The Dróttinn split her forces between herself and Luneko Shan of Diellyok and prepared for a pincer attack; Luneko would race up along the River Tsumun and engage the intervention force, while the Dróttinn would circle around from the west, collect Chinami's mush'ar, and cut off both reinforcements and avenues of retreat to the north. Departing Dorhanaar, the Dróttinn followed the River Din northward for a few days, then circled eastward toward Kosha. The cavalry force under the Hetman and Ser Volya began fording the Tsumun into eastern Taurivy. It was now summer, and the second stage of the Tsar's invasion was underway. Generál Svetya Pavelevich, Count of Svodograd, sailed a fleet of longships down the River Din with a large contingent of infantry. In the First Battle of Dorhanaar, they beached a few days north of Dorhanaar and stormed the Lyuudri militia garrison. The settlement was ill-prepared for this sort of assault and fell easily. Pavelevich began the process of fortifying his new conquest, constructing heavy timber walls from the trees felled around the Din. The Dróttinn and Luneko, failing to engage with the Cossari force now moving eastward, soon received word of Dorhanaar's fall. Fearing that Pavelevich would press further east if uncontested, Luneko was deployed southwest to prevent excursions out of Dorhanaar and starve out its defenders; Chinami's mush'ar was reinforced and ordered to raid supply lines between the Din and the Tsumun. The Dróttinn, meanwhile, forded the Tsumun and followed the Hetman east. With a short autumn and a long winter approaching, the third stage of the Tsar's invasion was put underway. The Tsar himself, leading the magnificent levy of the Tsardom's capital as well as multiple armored cavalry regiments, began establishing a series of fortifications along the Peninsula's northern border, penning mush'ar forces on the Peninsula and securing a significant portion of the River Din. Early engagements proved draining for Chinami's forces, and with most of the supplies in the region either destroyed by the Cossari in the spring or being cannibalized by the Tsar's occupation forces, she was forced to withdraw southward to Diellyok. The Tsar's Cossari cavalry were not faring well. Eastern Taurivy's settlements were smaller and more isolated, taking greater amounts of time to reach and pillage for relatively few supplies. To compensate, the Hetman began to divide his forces, keeping Ser Volya and his central column together and sending his lieutenants outward in a spiraling ring of perhaps a few days' radius, searching for villages to raid. This situation was easily preyed upon by Kuro Getsuei, a powerful mush'ar chieftain in the region. Misleading the Cossari raiders using signal pyres and false trails, Getsuei managed to confuse and separate the Cossari forces, her riders hunting down any messengers sent to bring reports and reunite the army. At least one of these Cossari raiding regiments was completely destroyed by Getsuei's warband by autumn, and starvation was driving the Cossari back westwards towards less harsh environments. This expedition ultimately culminated in what became known as the Battle of Black October. A sudden snowstorm struck the region in late October, effectively hampering the movement of Ser Volya's cavalry and drastically slowing the column. Mirroring her initial strategy with Luneko at Kosha, the Dróttinn coordinated a pincer attack with Getsuei. Unable to effectively maneuver their heavy cavalry or air support and assaulted on both sides, the Cossari formation collapsed under pressure from the two warbands. There are rumors as well of a thirteen-headed ice balaur unleashed by Getsuei during the battle, though these stories are more folkloric than historical. Ser Volya was killed in battle with Getsuei herself, and with him fell the entire regiment of heavy cavalry and at least half of the Cossari light cavalry. With winter fast approaching, Getsuei withdrew eastward to Falornar, while the Dróttinn rendezvoused with Luneko at Diellyok. The first year of the war ended inconclusively. Kasimir had gained territory, including the Dróttinn's seat at Dorhanaar; however, he had not crippled the Dróttinnate's military nearly as much as he had hoped, and the loss of his raiding cavalry so early in the campaign meant that the Dróttinn could more easily focus her forces. Heavily armed convoys resupplied Dorhanaar down the River Din, though Luneko's raiders more often than not claimed the supplies for themselves. 1568 PC The loss of the bulk of his Cossari cavalry and the raids on his supply lines altered the Tsar's strategy come the thaw. Without a large mobile force at his disposal, his advance became much more methodical. Namely he would "leapfrog" fortifications down the peninsula, using his heavy cavalry to screen infantry advances from one of his holdfasts. As before, Luneko and Chinami launched raids on his lines, but the presence of the large number of heavy cavalry prevented significant progress from being made, and there were relatively few casualties. A full-scale assault upon one of these fortification sites likely would have been successful; however, it would serve little purpose, as the mush'ar would then be trapped behind enemy lines, out of their own lands. Instead, the Dróttinn turned towards Dorhanaar with Luneko and the bulk of both of their forces, laying siege to the newly-fortified city. Lacking significant siege weaponry, this siege primarily took the form of a surround intended to starve out the defenders, with occasional probing strikes against the walls. Pavelevich's warriors held easily against these raids, but their supplies were already low from Luneko's raids. Time was short. Relief came unexpectedly. One of the Cossari raiding columns that had been separated from the Hetman's regiment managed to survive the winter and circumvented Diellyok to the south, along with a surviving balaur. The Second Battle of Dorhanaar was a bloodbath. The Cossari column was entirely obliterated; however, there was nothing in the Lyuudri's arsenal able to stop the balaur, able to fly freely in the warm early summer weather. Luneko Shan was killed in balaurfire, along with well over five hundred mush'ar warriors. Many hundreds more routed. The Dróttinn ordered a retreat in the chaos and withdrew back to Diellyok. Less than half of her original forces returned, the rest dead on the fields of Dorhanaar or fled into the wilderness. By this point in the war, Kosha was under the Tsar's control, and the fortification line stretched from Kosha to Dorhanaar. With his army reunited and western Taurivy slipping into his grasp, the Tsar began his offensive. Leaving skeleton garrisons at the fortification line, Kasimir marched on Diellyok. The mush'ar at this point were severely outnumbered by the Tsar's infantry and outmatched by his heavy cavalry. However, the Dróttinn refused to cede the last western settlement under her control and rallied as many militia and mush'ar she could muster to defend it. Some would call the Battle of Diellyok the deciding battle of the war, though many more cynical historians agree that the war for the Lyuudri had already been lost. Without another innovative strategy to counter the Tsar's cavalry, the Dróttinn again turned to a pincer attack, sending word to Chinami, whose warband had retreated farther south, to engage the Tsar's flank. This strategy was easily stymied by the Tsar's infantry, however. The initial charge by the Dróttinn's mush'ar, meant to force the heavy cavalry into an engagement, failed; the Tsar simply withdrew his cavalry and tried to bait the Dróttinn into his infantry, where she could be encircled. With the Dróttinn's cavalry suddenly forced to withdraw, Chinami was met with the full force of the Tsar's army. She was surrounded. Chinami Shan became the first known Lyuudri chieftain in the war to surrender. She and her few surviving mush'ar were used as laborers and guides for the Tsar's army for the remainder of the war. The Dróttinn forded the Tsumun with her surviving forces and withdrew deep into eastern Taurivy, reuniting with Kuro Getsuei and her warband and preparing for another engagement with the Tsar's army. However, the Tsar had different plans. Pavelevich was ordered southward along the coast of the Kholod Sea to establish a new fortress, Ostriye Tauryma, on the peninsula's southwestern tip. Establishing a new line of fortifications stretching down the Tsumun from Kosha to Ostriye Tauryma on the sea, Kasimir now controlled the entirety of western Taurivy. He officially renamed Kosha, the site of the first battle, Malyy Cossarvy, or "Little Cossaria," in honor of the Cossari who died in the war; he also renamed the Lyuudri capital Dorhanaar in his own honor: Kasimirsk. Autumn and winter would come and go without another major battle. 1567 PC The Dróttinn and Kuro Getsuei remained at large in eastern Taurivy for much of the year. However, they proved unable to launch a coordinated assault against any of Kasimir's holdings, as his fortifications proved impossible for their largely cavalry-based force to deal with effectively. Starvation was also becoming a serious problem for the mush'ar, as the Cossari had been ruthless in their raiding of northeastern Taurivy, and now two large mush'ar warbands were attempting to live off the same land. In effect, this year became the largest-scale siege in Taurivy history, with one half of the peninsula besieging the other. Ultimately Kasimir forced the Dróttinn into a final battle south of the River Tsumun in September of 1567 PC. The exhausted and demoralized mush'ar horde attempted one final push through Kasimir's defensive lines without success. Encircling the remnants of the warband, Kasimir demanded the Dróttinn's surrender. In return for her people's survival, there were several demands made. Firstly, full integration of the Lyuudri into the Tsardom as subjects. Secondly, the surrender of all remaining chieftains to face judgment in Kyigorod. Thirdly, the Dróttinn herself was to become the Tsar's wife to legitimate his rule of her people. She accepted, and the war ended. Kuro Getsuei's warband continued to engage in sporadic raids against the Tsar's occupation forces until the winter. Come spring, the Tsar claimed that his soldiers had recovered Getsuei's body, half-frozen in the snow, after she had committed ritual suicide. This put an end to the raids by her warband, though it seems many Lyuudri did not believe this account of her death, and some did not consider her dead at all. Aftermath After their surrender, the Lyuudri mush'ar were disarmed and ordered back to their villages. The Dróttinn's surviving lieutenants were arrested and deported back to Kyigorod for trial alongside Chinami Shan, while the Dróttinn accompanied Kasimir to Kasimirsk to be formally married. The Dróttinn notably refused to tell Kasimir her name, and attempts by his agents in the region to uncover it proved futile, as she had deliberately had her name purged from Lyuudri records out of shame. He gathered enough to recognize that she was considered part of a ruling tradition called Dorhajin, or the Valorous, and he had her name recorded in official records as "Filippa Dorhajin", her first name roughly meaning "horsewoman" in his dialect. They were married on October 21, 1567 PC, with him officially declaring himself "Drottinnfather of the Lyuudri" and asserting dominion of their people. He appointed a minister to administer the city in his name and returned to Kyigorod. Most settlements on the western half of the Taurym Peninsula were resettled by Kasimir's loyalists, particularly the cities of Kasimirsk and Malyy Cossarvy. Eastern settlements, which were smaller, more isolated, and in more desolate terrain, proved unappealing for many Cossari settlers, and resettlement efforts there were much slower to materialize. While there were no edicts demanding official changes to language or religion, the Tsar and his administrators refused to answer correspondence or engage in official discussion in any language but Govoric, and mention of Minn'da Lun and other Lyuudri gods was no longer allowed in the courts of Kyigorod or Kasivy, as well as in public forums in western cities such as Malyy Cossarvy. Faced with this wave of repression, most Lyuudri converted to Govoric Orthodoxy, though some still practiced Elunite customs in secret; those who were unwilling either migrated eastward where the tsar's grip was not as strong or were jailed. Over the next few decades, the military crackdown on Taurym let up, and the system of governance that would be present in future centuries began to emerge. The children of Tsar Kasimir and his Lyuudri wife took on the titles "Prince of Kasimirsk" and "Castellan of Kasivy" and took Kasimirsk as their seat, ruling it as a principality within the tsardom. The Lyuudri continued to elect leaders after the death of Filippa Dorhajin, but these leaders, by order of the Tsar, took on the title of Drottinnevna rather than Dróttinn and were given authority only on cultural matters; usually this lack of authority was compounded by compelled marriage to the Prince of Kasimirsk. The eastern settlements of Taurym, such as Falornar and Diellyok, continued to maintain a more traditional Lyuudri culture, though slowly they began to fall into line with the rest of the principality. Category:Ciernic Empire Category:Lyuudri